So he knew when he turned 16 but only got recognized 10 years later. I hope when he was a teenager he got into some friendly brawl and said "Shut up my Dad is the King." and got laughed on and now the other person is seeing the news.
But it’s funny because this is a common childhood fantasy. Like maybe as a five year old, you get into a conflict with your parents and you imagine that your dad is actually not really your dad, but is actually some other outstanding member of the community. There was a similar plot point in the Joker (2019) movie too.
So no merit, effort or capability-based gains; instead a straight title, prestige, wealth and inheritance gain through DNA, over which no offspring has any control.
He got equal inheritance rights as every person gets from his parents. In this case I see it as "You had a kid, you better take charge of that."
Also:
> But he will not receive a royal allowance, nor will he be expected to take on official duties, and he has no rights to the Belgian throne. Vandenkerckhove could take his father’s family name, Saxe-Coburg, but has indicated he may not choose to.
From a simulation hypothesis perspective, your DNA is the passport through many simulations you've experienced and it carries the merit, effort and capabilities gained over time.
I'm struggling to understand what the desirable alternative is here. Children shouldn't be recognized by their patients? Or only lower class parents should have the burden of sharing their income with their children?
All children should be gestated in womb-bladders in state hatcheries, and raised to maturity by the state. Knowing or wanting to know your parents should be considered a deviancy, a perversion.
Oh wait that’s Brave New World. Or The Naked Sun, depending on your preferred flavour of SF nightmare.
Are you advocating for all children being anonymized and raised in orphanages? Or a 100% inheritance tax? Or just expressing disappointment at your own relative lack of wealthy & famous recent ancestors?
Depending on what motivations are, separate controlling interest from personal wealth, at least above some reasonable limit.
Obviously easier said than done, but unless the predominant incentive for everyone is just to generate more wealth for themselves/relatives/etc, other existing incentives should be sufficient to invest.
I'm Belgian, this has been public knowledge since the guy was born. At least it was dealt with a lot more amicably than the other case (Delphine Boël being the child of King (then Prince) Albert II), which was decades of bad lying and denial.
Also:
> But he will not receive a royal allowance, nor will he be expected to take on official duties, and he has no rights to the Belgian throne. Vandenkerckhove could take his father’s family name, Saxe-Coburg, but has indicated he may not choose to.
So it seems nothing will change for him.
Limits on how much parents can spend other people's resources on their kids. Which goes with civil office being a job rather than a special privilege.
Oh wait that’s Brave New World. Or The Naked Sun, depending on your preferred flavour of SF nightmare.
Obviously easier said than done, but unless the predominant incentive for everyone is just to generate more wealth for themselves/relatives/etc, other existing incentives should be sufficient to invest.
Only a man could entertain this thought.